New Orleans VooDoo Coach Pat O'Hara set to face his former team

Facing the Orlando Predators tonight won’t be a typical game for VooDoo Coach Pat O’Hara and receiver Josh Bush.

"For him it might become a little personal, and if it becomes personal for him, it becomes personal for me,” Bush said.

For a good portion of his Arena Football League career, O’Hara was a member of the Predators, who play at New Orleans Arena tonight at 7 p.m. O’Hara led the Predators to two ArenaBowl titles in the 1990s and was their head coach last season.

But after leading Orlando to the playoffs last season, O’Hara was released. A couple days later, he signed on to coach the VooDoo.

It would be a normal reaction for O’Hara to be itching to get back at his former team, but according to him, that’s not the case.

“It’s a division game,” O’Hara said. “At the end of the day, that’s what it is.”

Revenge aside, that’s what lies as the biggest factor. In the tight South Division race, the VooDoo (3-5) needs to win tonight to keep pace with Tampa Bay and Georgia, both at 5-4. Orlando’s fortunes have reversed, going from 11-7 last year to 1-7 so far this season.

“I just want to beat Orlando, period,” linebacker Alvin Ray Jackson said. “I don’t want to show them that they fired the wrong coach. I’m glad they fired the wrong coach.”

O’Hara has the VooDoo playing better this season, but chances to get over the hump and have a winning record at this point have slipped by.

“I know it’s Orlando and my former team, but it really is about us executing better,” O’Hara said. “We have to put together a complete game, and if we do that, it will be amazing what a win can do.”

So far this season, Orlando’s offense has been sputtering. The Predators have topped the 50-point mark only twice, and they have twice been held to fewer than 30 points. The team’s only win was a defensive 27-24 victory against Georgia on April 20.

It has made a difference since O’Hara was let go last year. In 2011, the Predators averaged 55.6 points per game. This year, it’s 37.2. By contrast, the VooDoo averaged 45.6 points per game last year and this season is averaging 55.0.

“That’s the business of this game,’ said Bush, who played for the Predators the previous two seasons. “Do I feel that he was let go for that reason? I don’t know; I’m not the owner of the Orlando Predators. Do I think he did a great job in Orlando? I think he did a wonderful job in Orlando.”

Bush has been a huge pickup for New Orleans, with 42 receptions for 601 yards and 11 touchdowns. He’s averaging 137 all-purpose yards per game and has filled in at defensive back when another player was injured.

“Football is football, and when you go to another team, you take on the personality of that team, and I’m a VooDoo,” Bush said. “These guys want to go out and play hard for Coach O’Hara, and we want to let Orlando know they let the wrong man go.”